


The Empty Teapot

by demon_faith



Category: Sherlock (BBC)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-07
Updated: 2015-08-07
Packaged: 2018-04-13 11:59:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4521123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/demon_faith/pseuds/demon_faith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John Watson is dead. But Sherlock knows it can't be true.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Empty Teapot

**Author's Note:**

> Plotted during a crazy London weekend with [](http://kirke-novak.livejournal.com/profile)[kirke_novak](http://kirke-novak.livejournal.com/) and written on the train home – thank you, beautiful.

It took him two days to notice.

At five past one in the afternoon, Sherlock raised his head from the arm of the sofa and looked into the kitchen. Their teapot stood on the table, placed on a faded paisley mat of Mrs Hudson's, an island of safety from the poisons and toxins that covered the rest of the table.

Something was wrong. Sherlock leapt from the sofa, muscles screeching from disuse, and strode up to the table. He bent to observe the teapot at eye level – cold, had been for at least twenty-four hours, a solitary tear of overbrewed tea marring the exterior. Sherlock tapped the side – empty, save for half a mug perhaps.

John did not leave their possessions like this. He insisted on rinsing out the teapot after each use, never washing it, and wiping the outside with a soft teatowel. An Army man took care of his things.

He might have left it for Sherlock to take care of – but he could not bear to see it there for more than a day. And this was long cold.

Sherlock struggled to recall the minute fluctuations of his environment over the past few days. He recalled John setting down the teapot on Tuesday morning, declaring he was going to his little hobby at the GP surgery. He had opined that Sherlock should take a walk and fetch more milk and bread.

Sherlock opened the fridge. No milk. Monday's leftovers uneaten. The cheese starting to mould.

John had not been home since Tuesday.

Sherlock walked to the mantelpiece and studied his phone – two messages from Molly (irrelevant) and a cryptic message from Mycroft about flowers for Mummy, which meant that Sherlock should visit. No message from John.

Sherlock paused. This was not the behaviour of the John Watson he knew. True, he had once spent the night away, but there had been a clear precipitant and he had returned promptly, out of breath and unduly concerned over a mere pile of broken glass.

A mystery. A case, at last!

He interviewed Sarah Sawyer first. A brief phone call that revealed bare facts – John had not arrived for work Tuesday morning. He had not called and he had been due to work the full week. He was not answering his phone. This was not unusual in and of itself – but, as he was not with Sherlock, it became significant. Sarah was now concerned: if he was not with Sherlock, then where was he?

With sharp efficiency, Sherlock then called every hospital in the London area that possessed an A&E department. No John Watson admitted within the last three days. It was then, with great reluctance, that Sherlock Holmes called Inspector Lestrade.

"What do you mean you've lost him?"

Sherlock tightened his grip on the phone. The comment seemed light-hearted, teasing, but he heard the underlying note of tension that he was sure carried in his own voice.

"John is missing. He did not go to work on Tuesday. He had not come home since. He is not in the hospitals and, I take it, he had not been arrested."

He heard Lestrade instruct Donovan to check for such an event. Then, in lower tones: "You only noticed now?"

Sherlock closed his eyes and lied. "We don't see each other every day." But he knew his voice had given him away, the note of fear that refused to quit. Thankfully, Lestrade let it go.

"What about his sister?"

"In a centre for rehabilitation – it does not permit visitors."

"Any other family?"

"He has none." No one to miss him. No one except Sherlock.

"You need to file a report, Sherlock."

"I need to find him!"

The outburst hung in the resulting silence and Sherlock took a breath. "Help me."

Lestrade must know what it cost him to say the words. He would help now. He had to.

"I'll be right over."

The line went dead. Sherlock's eyes fixed on the teapot – evidence, data. He would find them. He would find John.

~

When Lestrade arrived, Sherlock had turned the flat upside down. The inspector stepped over a pile of clothes that had tumbled down the stairs and made his way up to John's room.

Sherlock was surrounded by John's few possessions, now lying haphazardly around the formerly neat room.

"A green sweater. And the tan trousers from Marks and Spencer with the restitched right hem. Also, the revolver."

Lestrade stiffened. "Revolver?"

Sherlock waved his hand dismissively. "His service revolver. I have never known him to take it the surgery. Different worlds."

Lestrade did not point out that Sherlock had just implied that his friend carried a concealed weapon at other times, and his mind abruptly snapped into place the final missing piece of that affair with the cabbie. A service revolver indeed. "Anything else missing?"

"No. Except socks, perhaps – I have never counted them."

Lestrade took as read that Sherlock had catalogued the rest of John's wardrobe. "His phone?"

Sherlock shook his head and raced down the stairs. Lestrade followed warily, unnerved by a Sherlock who wasn't constantly two steps ahead of him.

John's laptop was already open, Sherlock loading up John's GPS provider and searching for the little device.

"Perhaps he just took a break, a few days to..."

Sherlock's fingers paused in their tapping, his eyes fixed on the screen. Lestrade looked over his shoulder.

Dear God, it was in the middle of the Thames.

~

Dredging the river took time. It wasn't like in those TV shows where they produced a body in half an hour.

Mrs Hudson brought in the tea. It was the least she could do for the poor boy, his life partner at the bottom of the river like that. He didn't say thank you but then he never did.

She set the tray down. "It won't be long now, dear."

Mrs Hudson took in the bruised, scraped knuckles and the pyjamas that were growing looser by the day. He'd always eaten like a sparrow but she hadn't seen a morsel pass his lips for two weeks now.

"He's not dead." The faint rasp carried a note of desperation but Mrs Hudson merely patted his hand. "Of course, dear."

She left him alone then, and left a message for that nice brother of his. Because the only other person who could help was gone.

~

The problem was that there was no data. The Thames had refused to give up the phone, their only lead, and no cabbie remembered taking John as a fare on Tuesday. It seemed he had stepped out of their front door and vanished into thin air.

His credit card had not been used, his e-mail had not been checked, and Sherlock would not call Harry. He refused to be responsible for John's last remaining family dying in an alcoholic stupor.

So, he thought numbly, this is what it's like. To care.

His informants and his irregulars had not yielded a grain of information. Finally, he had broken down his last wall of self-respect and called Mycroft.

"Oh."

The word was soft, barely breathed. Sherlock heard the pity and closed his heart against it. He would not be seen as weak. "Is he dead?"

Mycroft's voice was soft, sorrowful. "Where does the evidence lead you?"

Sherlock hung up.

~

After a month, Lestrade closed the investigation. He'd presented five bodies to Sherlock, each one corrupted beyond recognition, and each declared within a moment to be a priest, an undertaker, two jewellers, and a bus driver.

Lestrade had hope at the spark of life displayed at each deduction, but then the moment was over, and the weight of misery descended on him once more.

"I'm sorry, Sherlock," he said, standing in the living room of the flat, clutching the mug that Mrs Hudson had pressed into his hand. "My hands are tied. Department regulations."

"He's not dead." But the voice was weary now, the retort automatic and without feeling.

"Let me find you work. A case, a set of cases." Lestrade had hated crawling to Sherlock for results, but now, with the light of the man diminishing in front of him, he would give anything to preserve it.

"I am retiring. You will see me no more."

Lestrade's grip tightened on the mug. "You're wasting away. What will John have to come back to?"

But Sherlock knew it was a hollow argument. that Lestrade had accepted John's death weeks ago.

"You can see yourself out."

Lestrade set down the mug by the teapot, still sitting on the table from a month before. He reached for it. "Let me-"

"Don't." Sherlock stirred, reaching out a forbidding hand that shook with the effort, gutters of flesh between the tendons.

"Take care, Sherlock."

As he closed the door, Lestrade wondered if he would last the week.

~

Thoughts grew scarce.

He was aware of time passing, fleeting snatches of clarity that told him he was still living.

Between times, he dreamed. He saw John, back in the desert, angry. No fear – a soldier's eyes. He had always been strong. Even facing death, John's body had not betrayed him. It never would.

He dreamed of Mycroft. Tall, austere, unperturbed by the heat. Why was it so hot?

They faced each other, Mycroft and John. The logic and the emotion.

"I did what you asked."

John sounded disgusted. So many moral absolutes. And some lines blurred, but for Sherlock. Only for Sherlock.

"We had a deal."

"And now it's over."

Sherlock opened his eyes. His head rested on something warm and soft. Fingers tangled in his hair, an intimate caress, and a hand rested over his wrist, calmly taking his pulse.

"Ten more minutes and I was calling an ambulance."

Sherlock stopped breathing. He weakly moved his hand, fingers reaching for skin, to be sure, to be certain. The hand in his hair soothed, and John shushed him like a child.

"Take it easy. I'm not going anywhere."

His heart hammered in his chest and he could not settle, turning his head to see John's face. Even as his mind sluggishly supplied the facts - _tanned dry skin, desert, Afghanistan_ \- he had to know everything, to know why, to revel in it.

John held a cup to his lips, supporting his neck. "Water. Take it slowly."

Sherlock obediently drank, his parched throat craving moisture. John cruelly took the cup away, hands once more soothing and studying, an act of reassurance.

"I was wrong," he rasped. "Don't take Mycroft's money. Don't do anything he asks."

John frowned. "How did you-"

Sherlock could dazzle and beguile but his mind, starved of sustenance and stimulation, settled for the simple. "You trust no one else."

John's hand on his wrist tightened almost to the point of pain. "Don't worry about it. Won't happen again."

A falling out. Sherlock wondered if it was because of him. He did not go unsatisfied for long. John leaned closer, an intimate whisper. "When I heard what he'd let you do, I came straight back. God, such a mess."

Sherlock wasn't sure if John was referring to the situation or Sherlock himself, but he was in no position to contradict. He felt his eyes fall closed but jerked them open. He would not fall asleep. He would not risk waking from this dream.

But his eyelids were heavy and John's hands were soothing. "Go to sleep, Sherlock. I'll be here."

In the end, he had no choice. His eyes shut and, with his last conscious thought, he prayed: _please let this be real_.

~

Sherlock woke four hours later as a tea tray crashed into the floor and Mrs Hudson shrieked.

"It's me! Really."

By the murky morning light, Sherlock watched the woman hug the breath out of John, and was suddenly jealous of the contact. Some time in the night, John had ceased cradling his head and a cushion had taken his place.

Mrs Hudson smacked his arm hard enough to bruise. "You gave us such a fright! Look at poor Sherlock! I hope you're ashamed, young man."

John did look at him and his eyes were haunted, full of regret and terrible guilt. "Sorry," he murmured with devastating sincerity, heady stuff to those so used to lies.

Mrs Hudson mellowed. "Well, then, I will make you both some porridge. You are both far too thin. And you" – she pointed at Sherlock – "will eat every last mouthful."

She bustled back down the stairs, the wreck of the tea tray forgotten. John came to sit on the edge of the sofa. Mrs Hudson was right – he was thin, with more muscle in his arms and a callus on his trigger finger, which now rested on Sherlock's pulse.

"How are you feeling?"

"Been better." An understatement _in extremis_ but John already knew that. He gave Sherlock more water with the same gentle touch and Sherlock drank greedily of both water and skin.

He had never liked to be touched, but this was new, care displayed through fingers that could heal or kill in an instant, and Sherlock felt powerful – the man who'd torn John Watson from his war.

John's fingers moved from his wrist, apparently satisfied, but Sherlock seized his hand with surprisingly strength. John hesitated, then curled his hand around Sherlock's, pressing gently. "I'm not leaving, Sherlock."

Perhaps the doubt flickered in his eyes or perhaps John also needed proof that they both lived, because he leaned in and pressed a dry kiss to Sherlock's lips, chaste reassurance.

"Well, I'm glad you boys have made up," Mrs Hudson interrupted cheerfully and Sherlock watched the blush creep up John's neck, unfathomably attractive.

Sherlock ate every last mouthful of porridge under John's watchful gaze and fell asleep dreaming of a blushing John Watson.

~

Sherlock lay on a mountain of pillows, two blankets spread over him and both tea and crumpets within reach of his hand. John insisted that he was not permitted to stir from his place on the sofa without assistance or he would be confined to his room; it seemed that John had been a matron in his former life.

"You're looking better."

Lestrade stood in the doorway, looking relieved. Sherlock felt an odd sensation in his chest – concepts of care and friendship may need to be further refined, he believed.

"Few more days and he'll be back to work."

John emerged from the kitchen and Lestrade looked like he had seen a ghost. Sherlock enjoyed the shellshocked expression for a moment and then suffered that brief flicker of jealousy when Lestrade earnestly shook him by the hand.

"Well, where the bloody Hell have you been?"

John looked vaguely sheepish. "Ah, classified, I'm afraid."

Lestrade raised an eyebrow. "Well, let this one know in future, eh? Drove us mad dredging the river."

John smiled tightly and set down Sherlock's protein shake, clasping his shoulder as he did so. Sherlock felt inexplicably warm and looked up at him. Lestrade cleared his throat.

"Well, if you're all right-"

"Tea, Lestrade?" John was already heading for the pot and, for a second, Sherlock held his breath.

"Uh...sure."

Sherlock felt Lestrade's eyes on him and, as John's hands closed around the teapot, he felt his world shift into alignment once again.


End file.
